THECOMPARATIVE RANK OF GREAT CITIES.
THE decree of the Emperor of Austria raising Buda Pesth to the rank of a capital, has created in this country some surprise, not unmixed with ridicule ; but the laughter is a little out of place. Municipal pride is clean pride, as Charlotte Bronte used to describe the better variety of the emotion ; and the decree, besides giving the officials of the new capital their natural precedence over the officials of the other cities of Hungary, registers the equality of Vienna and Buda-Pesth within the Hapsburg dominion in a way that delights and soothes every born Hungarian. Belfast was gratified the other day when its Mayor was made Lord Mayor, not because a citizen had received a perfectly useless dignity tenable only for one year, but because the rank of the city in Ireland had been thereby acknowledged to be equal to that of Dublin. Cities have rank like persons, and are at least as vain of it; and it is of some interest to note from what cir- cumstances that rank is derived. It has not much to eo with population or wealth, or present importance of any kind, for some of the greatest cities in the world do not possess it,—that is, in the general imagination, which, as among cities and personages, settles all such questions. No North American city, for example, can be said to possess rank among cities, though New York is gradually acquiring it, and no South American city, unless it be Mexico, which is surpassed by many others both in population and wealth, owing its position mainly to the romantic circumstances which attended its introduction to civilised mankind, and to the vague idea of wealth and power which still attaches to its name. The word Mexico is, like the word Golconda, vaguely suggestive of "potentialities of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice," and therefore it, confers rank. There is no rank appertaining to Glasgow, whatever its citizens may think, though it is one of the greatest and most opulent cities of the world ; or to Marseilles, or to Shanghai, or to Madras, or to Odessa, though their disap- pearance from the planet would be far more severely felt than that of places which nevertheless, in the feeling of mankind, take precedence of them all. The fact that a city is a capital also, has little to do with its estimation, Washington being classed among non-significant places ; while the Hague must be reckoned far behind Amster- dam ; and Florence not rising during its temporary primacy to the level either of Venice or Genoa, while it was always the superior of Turin, which had so long been a capital, as well as of Milan. Madrid, too, though a capital since its foundation, hardly belongs to the first rank of cities any more than St. Petersburg, in spite, in both instances, of their unquestioned official importance. Nor can age among cities confer rank, or we must give the pas to Damascus, which has lived on with an unbroken record of vitality since authentic history began, and was ancient when Rome was founded ; or to Yeddo, which, as Japanese believe, was ancient to hoariness before any European city had begun to arise amidst a primeval forest. Municipal aristocracy is settled, in fact, when the opinion of the world is the standard, very much as personal aristocracy is, on a consideration of various elements, among which history—the equivalent among cities of birth among individuals ; importance—the equivalent of possessions ; and beauty—the equivalent of merit—are perhaps the first. No one, we suppose, not born in the United States or in Lancashire, would question for a moment that the first rank among cities, the princedom, as it were, in titular rank, belongs of right to Rome, which is not the capital of a State undoubtedly of the first rank, and is only approaching the population and wealth of a great city. Rome was, however, not only for ages the ruling city of the civilised world, but throughout its existence never entirely lost its primacy, its place, that is to say, as the centre of things, the one point on the planet which mankind never forgot, and the opinion of which was never without a commanding in- fluence. Conquered, despoiled, outraged, almost levelled, Rome never lost its caste, not even during the centuty in which it ceased to be the seat of the Papacy ; but though it has no claim of situation, and little beauty of site, no natural commerce, and for centuries no great deposit of wealth, it has remained always a city to whose fate no man could be indifferent. Jerusalem has a little of the same charm, but it is only a little, its history being almost confined to three incidents, the building of the Temple, the revelation
of the Messiah, and the siege ; but no one would deny to Jerusalem, never a great city, and for ages a dirty village, high rank among the cities of the world. An imaginative attraction, also, of the kind which stamps rank, belongs to Samarcand, once the queen-city of Northern Asia, first from the Yellow Sea to the Baltic, though this attraction is felt by a much smaller circle than that which feels reverence when- ever Jerusalem is mentioned. The human race knows of the Cityof Peace, and only a class knows of the city of Jenghiz Khan Next to Rome in titular municipal precedence, men wculd place either London or Paris, the verdict of the majority being probably for the latter. London, it is true, is far greater, far richer, and, as the centre or cynosure of the English-speaking nations, exercises a more direct influence over a larger section of mankind ; but it is not so perfectly a living entity as Paris is. Paris, if we may use a slightly extravagant figure, has throughout its history been a person, London a committee of persons, and rank attaches itself strongly to individuality. Nobody exults in being a Londoner, while all Parisians think that outside Paris is an uncivilised desert. Paris, too, has had by far the more interesting history, and has more affected by its movements the history of the world, which, though greatly affected by London, has felt it rather through its influence onEngland than in any more direct and cognisable way. The stream may not hold the water contained in a reservoir, or fertilise half such an extent of country ; but still, it may have a larger place in that imagination of men which, among cities as among nations, distributes rank. London contains all things, but then all things are lost in London, and serve to swell its bulk rather than to increase its active vitality. The loss created by the disappearance of London would be far greater than the loss caused by the dis- appearance of Paris, but the world would miss Paris far more keenly, and for a longer time.
The municipal order of precedence must be, we think, first Rome, then Paris, and then London; and we fancy, in spite of the degradation to which it has in some ways been reduced, Constantinople must count fourth. It is the capital of a semi- barbarian Power, but its history is splendid, and the unrivalled advantages of its site, both as regards beauty and potential power, have fixed on it an attention which neither time nor change of circumstance seems ever greatly to diminish. It has remained through ages an imperial city, a prize for which all the world is willing to contend, while it has this special claim to rank, that it affects the imagination of Asia as well as of Europe, and though the continents are not equal, the older and bigger one must count. To Osmanli and Arab, Persian and Indian, Stamboul is still the queen of cities, the one where earthly grandeur has been most visibly present for the longest period of time ; and that impression, true or false, and it is true in part, gives to a city supreme rank. Constantine made no blunder ; and unless a convulsion of Nature should widen the Bosphorus, it is difficult to conceive of the circum- stances which could make of his city less than one of the four or five which the thirtieth or fortieth century will regard as entitled to that perpetual attention of thoughtful men which, far more than wealth or population, constitutes a city's claim to be considered great. The fifth place is more difficult to assign. Berlin would claim it loudly, and, judged by mere importance, with much justice ; but Berlin is not old, it has no far-stretching history, and somehow one thinks of it rather as the habitat of a power than a power in itself. It is a power, no doubt, influencing every thought in Germany by its criticism, and Germany just now is first in Europe ; but still, Berlin lacks the imaginative attraction which is the secret of rank. It has not so much as -Vienna, which, to those who realise its position as the central point of so many nations and languages and civili- sations, is indeed a queen-city ; but still, outside the Hapsburg dominion, the grandeur of Vienna is but faintly perceptible. It is a wonderful place, a meeting-house of East and West, a rendezvous of great and widely differing sections of mankind ; but in all these respects it is rivalled, if not surpassed, by Moscow, which, quite as grand in itself, has a far wider sphere of influence. From Saghalien to Sweden, Moscow is the centre of all things, and would, if she were but more free, and more perfectly supplied with railroads, become one of the greatest cities recorded since the fall of Rome. The fifth place belongs, we conceive, to Moscow, though if we adhered rigidly to our thesis, and assigned rank by place in the imagination of men, we are not sure that Calcutta might not put in a valid claim. That city has a singular hold over both Asiatic and European, as the municipal representative of Oriental dominion, and its resulting luxury and wealth. "You can buy tigers' teeth in Calcutta," say the people of Bengal; and its prosperity is a wonder to Chinese merchants, as well as to dealers in Arabia, and northwards up to the Hindoo ICoosh. Calcutta, however, though a mighty place in the' world's regard, has drawbacks which militate against its claim to municipal rank. It is very young, it is, as compared with European capitals, very lifeless except for purposes of trade, and it is very deficient in beauty. It is scarcely, indeed, a city at all, being rather a commercial camp pitched on a flat plain, with semi-circles of brick-tents in front, and an infinite medley of brick, adobe, and matting huts behind. It calls itself the "City of Palaces," but there are no buildings in it of the slightest merit, or any solidity of structure. The "palaces" are thinly built brick villas, interspersed with rather more solid warehouses; but with churches, temples, and mosques far below the level of those in innumerable cities of the great peninsula. Of architecture there is in Cal- cutta literally none, and pitched as the city has been upon an expanse of drearily flat rice-fields, there is literally nothing to see in it, except the mighty river, not half so beautiful as- it is at Benares, and the quiet, orderly, money-seeking crowds which circulate endlessly through its squalid-looking bazaars. Calcutta is grand only in the imagination of men, and far inferior in reality to Bombay, which has a beautiful site, finer buildings, more solid houses, and a crowd equally great of more varied men, who look, though they are not, higher average specimens of humanity. Moscow, as we have said, must have the fifth place, then Vienna, then Bombay, then Berlin, and after that Calcutta, Pekin, and New York, which last a century hence, when generations of solid prosperity have evolved great buildings, will probably be fifth among the cities of the world. It hopes to be first,. and it may be in wealth and in population ; but there is, in great things as in small, one impassable limit to human energy,—it can never produce the effects of time. New York may concentrate in itself the luxury, and even the learning of two worlds, but it can never invest itself either with the charm or the rank which springs from the history of Rome, or Paris, or London, or Constantinople. Nor can it ever possess the vivid charm, and therefore the lofty rank, which beauty, without the aid of greatness, has conferred upon Edinburgh, Naples, Florence, and Stockholm.
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